


loose lips kiss you clean

by malo_malo



Category: Community
Genre: Babysitting, Bars and Pubs, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-10
Updated: 2013-08-10
Packaged: 2017-12-22 23:39:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/919395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/malo_malo/pseuds/malo_malo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Britta, I've been to many bars with you, all you ever get is vodka with a steadily increasing number of olives that you struggle to get out of the glass after drink three, tequila shots, and maybe an Old Fashioned when you forget that you don't like them. You never drink wine."</p><p>"I drink wine at restaurants all the time. It's cold out, maybe I wanted a nice glass of mulled wine."</p>
            </blockquote>





	loose lips kiss you clean

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from 'Staring at the Sun' by TV on the Radio. This fic was originally written for the community fic exchange, which was a lot of fun even though it didn't quite work out.

ritta stared down into the beatific face of her current adversary: a calmly beaming baby. Yes, he was completely adorable, and she totally wanted to kiss his little feet or pinch his cheeks. Or she would, if he didn't smell absolutely terrible right now. 

"Okay, Jaydin, I'm going to change your diaper now," Britta sing-songed, trying to psych herself up. She liked kids, she really did, but everything to do with diapers is the worst. She always conveniently forgot about all this part whenever she volunteered to babysit.

He burbled at her happily and kicked his feet against the changing table. Britta grimaced and went searching for diapers under the table, one hand on his belly to keep him from rolling off. 

Her phone buzzed loudly at her, making her whole leg vibrate. "Fuck," she said, startled, glanced up at the baby, then, "shit."

She knew better than swearing in front of kids, even pre-verbal ones. Her brother was probably never going to forgive her accidentally teaching Marcus the word crap. It was over ten years ago and had barely even been a curse word, but, still, every time she'd go over he'd give her a little speech about 'appropriate language'.

Finally, Britta finagled her phone out of her pocket and shoved it between her shoulder and her ear. All done without letting Jaydin go.

"Hello?" she said, and then regretted not checking the caller ID. Not that it probably would have been helpful. Half the time her phone displayed gibberish instead of the incoming caller's name.

"I got a second interview for that job I that I interviewed for last week," Jeff replied. "Wanna go celebrate with me?"

"Oh cool," she said, "the one with the public defenders?"

"That's the one. I was thinking about trying the new bar near the hospital; I heard their scotch selection is impeccable."

"I could meet you in an hour. I need to finish babysitting," she replied, finally catching sight of the diapers wedged behind a mega-case of Hawthorne wipes. 

"Tell Troy and Abed they can come too."

"Ha ha," Britta said making a face at the state of Jaydin's diaper. She was now physically equipped to deal with this whole situation, but not mentally. "Tell them yourself. I'm watching a real child."

"How old?" Jeff asked. Probably to be polite and at a lost of what else to say, Britta's sure.

"Uh, eight months," she replied, "I think, maybe nine?" The whole trying to change a diaper basically one-handed was going better than she thought it could.

"Eight months, that's when they start crawling, right?"

"Yeah, Jaydin is just starting. He's good enough to have gotten into my purse when I first got here."

"Jayden?" Jeff asked, "Your friend named her baby Jayden?"

"Jaydin with an i, yes," she answered warily, guessing that he was going to use this as a premise to make fun of her name again. It's a legitimate Scandinavian name, okay. Lots of people have it, and 'Bork Bork Bork' is not and has never been the language of her people. "Calling her a friend might be overselling it though."

"Is Jaydin with an i talking yet? I want to know if there's a chance he's already aware of how bad his name is."

Britta paused, picked the baby, now freshly changed up, and started towards his crib. It's about when his mom had warned he'd normally get sleepy, and sure enough, he's rubbing his eyes, an obvious sign of exhaustion. "No, he's too little."

"He must be babbling then."

"Wow, Winger, whipping out all this baby knowledge. Impressive." She joked. "Does that clean up with the single moms?"

"No," he said, amused. "Why are you even babysitting?"

"Cause I need the money," Britta replied, "Duh-doy. And I like kids too. It's not the worst thing I've done for cash." She perches on the only non-leather chair in the living room. It's about fifty different kinds of uncomfortable, but she'd had a good talk with her friend Raven at the animal hospital earlier about taking a real stand for non-human rights. Cows died for this living room, maybe as many as fifty.

"Doesn't it go against your feminist principles or something?"

"What goes against my feminist principles, Jeff, is that taking care of kids is devalued by society." Britta said with a sniff, "It's not like I'm going to become a stay at home mom whose life revolves around baking the best brownies at the PTA bake sale and if the cocktails she fixes her husband are good enough to keep him from slutting around with his new secretary. I want kids, okay?"

"I know,"

"Don't pretend that you don't want kids either, Winger," Britta insisted, feeling a little defensive. "You want to be able to show your dad up, it's classic Freudian stuff."

"I'm surprised that you said Freud right."

"And now you're deflecting," Britta said, "This is textbook."

"I have to go. I need to invite the rest of the group." He hung up without saying bye, which rude and typical.

She shrugged it off and thought about getting a bit of a head start on the semester and reading one of her new textbooks. There was about a week left until classes began, and she had already bought two of them. This was the most prepared she had ever been for classes in her entire life.

Instead, she got about five minutes into a daydream where she gets straight As and multiple grad schools send representatives to wine and dine her while begging her to attend, before Jaydin's parents swept in. So much for that plan, Britta thought, and then mentally braced herself for the expected interrogation.

\---

About hour and thirty minutes later, sixty bucks richer, her stomach still queasy after having to answer so many questions about the consistency of Jaydin's poop, Britta stomped into the bar late. She was unsure if she should be flattered or insulted that the bouncer didn't card her. She paused at the door and pretended to scan the bar for the study group so she could observe how the bouncer treated the next couple of people entering and judge accordingly. After waving a couple of nurses still in their scrubs through, he asked for the ID of a guy that looked older than her, so she walked to Jeff's table, satisfied.

"Maybe you should get real glasses if it took you so long to find me," Jeff said, in lieu of greeting her. Britta already had real glasses. Sure the lenses didn't really do anything, but they still counted as real.

Britta rolled her eyes. "Hello to you too. Maybe if you hadn't worn a plaid shirt like every other guy in this bar, I'd have picked you out right away." She had actually seen him as soon as she'd stepped in, but it's not like she'd tell Jeff the real reason she was delayed.

Jeff glanced at his shirt. "This is a three hundred dollar shirt. There is an obvious difference in quality between what I'm wearing and everybody else."

"Well, unlike you, I don't care about material possessions," Britta said with a sniff.

Jeff picked up his glass, swirled it, and took a sip instead of answering, somehow clearly conveying that he thought she was being ridiculous.

"Where's the rest of the study group?" she asked, idly tapping her fingers on the table. She wanted to get a straight vodka with four or five olives, maybe six, after the way babysitting had ended, but she also knew Jeff would say something about how predictable she was. Not that he had much room to talk, as all he would drink was neat Scotch and, one time, after she dared him and he was already trashed, a Sex on the Beach. It was a fun argument, however they'd had it all the time when they'd been sleeping together, and it was kind of awkward to have now.

"Shirley said 'bars are the devil's playground'," he answered ticking off a finger, "but she wants to get lunch after my interview so she can hear all about it. Pierce texted me a blurry picture of a nude beach when I invited him, so he's still in Europe. And Troy, Abed, and Annie all told me it was game night and they couldn't miss or reschedule it."

Britta knew all about their version of game night, or as much as a non-resident of the apartment could know. Scheduling game night had something to do with the phases of the moon, Harry Potter marathons on TBS, and a bunch of other things that Troy had insisted were trade secrets. Abed and Troy would try to decide on a game by attempting to mind meld until Annie'd get fed up and grab a game off the shelf. Mostly Risk. Annie is a beast at Risk, apparently. Also, this is how they decided what chores they had to do around the apartment, since it was 'way more fun than a chore wheel, sorry Annie'.

"Can I get you anything to drink?" a waiter interrupted her thoughts.

"Another scotch, and the lady'll have a double vodka on the rocks with six olives," Jeff said before Britta could even open her mouth.

Because Britta is growing and learning to be a better, more tactful person, she waited until the waiter got a good three or four steps away before she corrected Jeff on her order. "Are you going to club me over the head and drag me back to your lair by the hair after this is over? It's not the 1950s Jeff, it's rude for a men to order for a woman. And that's not what I wanted."

"Excuse me, did you want seven olives instead?" Jeff answered, amused, "You always get the same thing, and I wanted them to put your drink on my tab. I owe you for all those sandwiches that you bought for me during finals."

"Maybe I wanted wine," Britta said, "I drink all kinds of drinks."

"Britta, I've been to many bars with you, all you ever get is vodka with a steadily increasing number of olives that you struggle to get out of the glass after drink three, tequila shots, and maybe an Old Fashioned when you forget that you don't like them. You never drink wine."

"I drink wine at restaurants all the time. It's cold out, maybe I wanted a nice glass of mulled wine."

"Why would you get mulled wine at a bar?" Jeff asked. "That's the kind of drink you make at home. What bar even serves that?"

"I don't know, possibly this one, you never let me ask to check. Besides, I never remember to buy the spices at the supermarket."

"Don't tell me that you get one of those pre-made mixes," Jeff said, disgust palpable in his voice.

"Ugh, no, they taste like sawdust," Britta agreed completely with his opinion on this matter for once. "It's the cloves, the only reason to buy cloves is for mulling."

"Your scotch," the waiter returned with their drinks, "and yours." He placed them on the table and walked briskly away.

Britta leaned over her drink and popped two of the olives in her mouth at once, contentedly. She's never looked this up formally, but as a scientist-psychology is a science, thank you very much-she's pretty sure this counts as a serving of vegetables.

"So tell me about this second interview of yours," Britta prompted and drained half of her glass.

"It's on Friday morning. I'm going to be meeting with three different people and then I'm going to have lunch with my potential boss."

"Sounds good," Britta said. "Sounds like they really want you for the job."

He continued and rehashing Jeff's first interview, strategies for the second one, and other job leads took them through drink one. Gossip about Pierce and speculation about Apartment 303's game night with a brief discussion about the origin of the expression 'a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush' and if it always sounded dirty took them through the second one.

Britta's third vodka, this time with eight olives, arrived at the table. She'd saved an olive from the last one for drink continuity, it didn't count as three discrete drinks if she could easily link them all together like that, and she dropped them into her new one.

"I see you're enjoying your wine," Jeff said, gesturing in the vague direction of her hand with his chin.

"I decided that my mulled wine was better than anything that they could do here," Britta said. "I have an excellent recipe." Only then did she remember to check that a waiter or a bartender wasn't lurking around to be offended.

"Do tell."

"The secret is to make sure the wine is at a good boil, _then_ you add the spices. Really lets you taste all the subtleties of cinnamon."

Jeff looked horrified. Horrified enough that he actually stopped swirling his scotch and put the glass down.

"Boiling the wine will remove all of the alcohol," Jeff said, "that's why nobody makes it like you do."

"No it doesn't," Britta replied, stung, "if you keep the lid on, it's not a problem."

"I don't think that's how that works. You're basically drinking spiced grape juice at that point."

Britta pursed her lips and thought about demanding that he look it up on his phone. The only problem is that she's not sure he's wrong. She always adds a lot of brandy to her wine at the end, so yes, she'll get trashed on it, but maybe not because of the wine.

"Then what's your secret, Jeff?"

"I don't have one," Jeff said, glancing away briefly to the left. Britta had read something in her Criminal Pysch textbook yesterday-reading them ahead of time is already paying off-and it had said that when people lie they look to the left. She was about to do a victory fist pump, when she remembered doing so would give away the game prematurely.

"So you just make it normally?"

"Yes." He replied tersely.

"Nothing special?"

Jeff took a long sip of scotch, then sighed. "No. Normally it's too high calorie."

"What?"

"Mulled wine has too much sugar in it. Instead I," he lowered his voice, "use Skinnygirl wine. It tastes the same but it's not as fattening,"

"Seriously? Skinnygirl wine?" Britta said, trying her hardest not to burst out laughing.

"It tastes the same as full-calorie wine. Mostly."

"I don't know why I doubted my recipe for mulled wine based on the word of a man who drinks wine designed for sorority sisters and soccer moms." Britta shook her head.

Jeff stopped and applied himself to his drink. They sat quietly for a couple of minutes, where Britta tried to figure out if continuing on with this subject would be unethical, as a therapist.

"Of course I want babies, Britta." Jeff said breaking the silence.

It took Britta a second to figure out what the fuck he was talking about. She remembered their earlier conversation, but the link between Jeff's food issues and children eluded her.

"What does that have to do with wine? Are you deflecting again?" Britta demanded.

"Yes," he admitted.

"You'd really rather talk about kids than Skinnygirl wine?" Britta was surprised. Generally he had to be way, way more drunk to think talking about this kind of stuff is a good idea.

"I told my brother about the interview today," he said, mostly ignoring her, and picking his glass up yet again. "He'd be an okay uncle."

Britta leaned forward, eager to hear every word.

"I want kids, but what if I fuck it up? I can barely manage to talk to my family, my mom still doesn't know I got disbarred, and my half-brother texts me about what he should wear in the morning. I'm unemployed, half-way through my thirties, and." He stopped and looked pensive.

After a minute or two, Britta figured out that he wasn't go to say anything further without prodding. "I didn't think men had fertility clocks." A joke, especially a weak joke, was probably not the correct way to break that silence, but what's done is done.

He looked at her strangely for a long moment. She felt uncomfortable and dedicated herself to getting all of the rest of her olives into her mouth as quickly as possible.

"I think I've drunk enough to celebrate getting a second interview. I have to be able to build on this if I get the job."

Britta quickly tried to swallow everything in her mouth and almost choked. "I guess I'll get the bartender to call me a cab."

"You could do it from my apartment. It'll be easier," Jeff offered, shrugging into his coat, his face turned away from her.

"Okay," Britta said, and tried to figure out how much she should pay for her share of the drinks.

\---

The walk back to Jeff's apartment was freezing. And sobering. And silent.

It hadn't been the uncomfortable type of silence, not like at the bar at the end. They'd known each other for long enough to know how to be around each other and not say anything. Even though it was sometimes a struggle. Britta was desperate to talk to him more about his whole 'I want kids' thing or to tease him more about low calorie wine.

Jeff swung his front door open and gestured for her to enter. She obliged and started to root around in her purse for her phone. Why couldn't she find anything today?

"Britta," he murmured in a low voice. In a voice that she hadn't heard since they stopped hooking up two years ago. She took her hand out of her purse, already shaky with anticipation. She was willing to admit now that she had been desperate on the walk over, but not to talk. Or maybe to talk a little, she is going to be a therapist someday. Talking will literally be her job.

She turned to look at him.

"This doesn't mean I want kids now," he said with a weak smirk as he cupped her face in his hands. He leaned in slowly, slowly enough that Britta had enough time to think about jerking away. He's so tall, she thought giddily, of course it took awhile. But instead, she leaned in.

His mouth tasted of scotch and beeswax from the stuff he slathers his mouth in during the winter. It's unexpectedly familiar. As soon as their lips touched, he picked her up and she wrapped her legs around him. She had decided to change into a skirt after her adventures in babysitting, and she was momentarily extremely grateful towards past Britta. She tilted her hips upwards and was gratified to discover that he was already fully hard.

Britta thought that he was probably strong enough to fuck her without a wall, given how successfully he was holding her up now, and her toes curled in her boots. The one problem with this position was that he needed to use both hands to keep her from slipping, and right now she really wanted him to do something more interesting with them. Almost as soon as she had that thought, Jeff turned them so that they were pressed against the front door.

He reached into her shirt and unhooked her bra. Instead of moving to her breast, like she needed him to, he trailed his trembling hand up and down her back. So she wedged her hand between them and rubbed where she thought his nipple probably was. He made the most amazing shuddering noise in response and broke away from their kiss to pant a little.

Encouraged, she moved to the other one. He stood still for a moment, then heaved her up higher so she'd stop. As an unpleasant side effect, she was no longer pressed against his cock.

"Do you have a condom?" he gasped into the side of her neck. She shivered and pressed her neck into his mouth. He obeyed and licked slowly up the front of her throat.

His question finally penetrated. "Oh," Britta said, "I have some in my purse." Britta always had condoms in her purse. There was a second where she wanted to know why he even bothered to ask, but then, it had been a long time since that last time.

Jeff immediately dropped her and scrambled for where she had thrown her purse. Her legs shook and she wondered how he managed not only to stay standing during this but support her weight too. Unable to find the condoms immediately, he'd dumped her bag's contents all over the floor. She was going to scold him about it, but, upon further reflection, she decided that it would be better to praise him if it meant they'd be fucking faster.

He triumphantly held a condom aloft. Jeff moved towards her on his knees and pushed her skirt up even further. Her legs just about gave out. Then, he leaned in and pulled her panties down with his teeth, careful not to touch her along the way. It didn't matter, she still moaned.

He turned his face into her leg and she could feel his smile against her ankle. Jeff brushed his mouth in between her legs and she almost came on the spot. It didn't take much more to finish her off. His mouth was so warm, he flicked his tongue against her clit a couple of times, and she was done.

She was still shuddering from her orgasm when he picked her back up and pressed inside her. She sighed, and then he was kissing her again. He thrust in again harder and again. Britta could tell that he wasn't going to last very long. Not that she minded. There was a good chance that she was going to come again and soon. She felt like the whole conversation at the bar, the past two years, had been enough preparation.

He pressed his hand against her clit and that was enough for her. He came right after, in response. They stood for a moment, their breathing slowly returning to normal. He pulled out and did something with the condom. Then he carried her into his bedroom, deposited her on the bed, and flopped down beside her.

"I could get a cab now," Britta offered, after she regained her ability to think. It might be less awkward this way. She didn't really want to leave, but she wasn't sure if she should sleep over.

"No, stay," Jeff said into his pillow and he hooked a foot over her leg, ineffectually pinning her in place. So she did.

It was the right choice.


End file.
